More than 200,000 Detroit residents cannot read and critics are blaming not only schools but the city's politicians as well. Randy Faris/Corbis

May 6, 2011

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More than 200,000 Detroit residents — 47 percent of Motor City adults — are "functionally illiterate," according to a new report released by the Detroit Regional Workforce Fund. That means they can't fill out basic forms, read a prescription, or handle other tasks most Americans take for granted, according to the fund's director, Karen Tyler-Ruiz, as quoted by CBS Detroit. Her organization's study also found that the education and training aimed at overcoming these problems "is inadequate at best," says Jackie Headapohl at Michigan Live. So what's to blame?

Our education system is broken: This study "shows the staggering degree to which public education has failed in one of the most economically depressed cities in the United States," says Doug Mataconis at Outside the Beltway. And it's "even more shocking" that half of the illiterate population "somehow made it through public school." Clearly, "taxpayers aren't getting their money's worth." It's too bad that half of them "aren't able to read the report to figure that out.""Study finds 47% of Detroit residents are functionally illiterate"

Score one for supporters of standardized testing: Given these numbers, "I find it difficult to be seized with worry" about "teachers 'teaching to the test' too much," says Matthew Yglesias at ThinkProgress. The fact that so many kids "are passing through school systems and not learning basic literacy" means that school districts need to be monitoring and checking what these children are actually learning. That means better standardized testing. While testing is a "limited tool," it is "also an important one.""Half of adults in Detroit are functionally illiterate"